Chokecherry Jam

My father grew up on a farm in rural Montana in the 1930’s (he was born in 1923). He was second to last of ten children. He used to tell me stories of growing up, one of which included how, as kids, they were so hungry for something fresh that they would eat chokecherries right off the tree. While there may have been some truth to the story (it was the depression, after all), I have also met his brothers. And given that they were the kind of brothers who would put a dead fish in your sleeping bag on a camping trip, my guess is a lot of the chokecherry eating was on a dare.

If you’ve ever eaten a chokecherry right off the tree, it’s not an experience you are soon to forget. They are quite bitter, even when fully ripe, and will suck the spit out of your mouth with their pucker. But when cooked down with sugar and love…ambrosia. This bushy small tree, Prunis virginiana, is native to the US, and is found throughout the United States everywhere but the deep south. It likes life along stream banks and is an important source of food for birds and other wildlife, including coyotes and bears.

Once you get to this part, you’ll wonder why you picked so many. I LOVE this food mill. It’s all stainless steel, made in Italy, and I picked it up at a local hardware store years ago. SOLID.

My husband is a huge fan of chokecherries. He loves the trees, some varieties of which are cultivated as an ornamental. And he love love loves the jam and syrup. One of our first wild food forays, before we were even married, was harvesting chokecherries along the Clark Fork river in Missoula Montana. Prior to Google, that first batch of jam was based on the advice of an aunt (who still lived in the town my father grew up in). She explained how she would keep the seeds with the pulp, chopping them in a blender, and that they added an almond flavor to the finished syrup. I have since learned that the seeds themselves are poisonous (clearly not THAT poisonous), containing hydrocyanic acid (um…that would be cyanide). I can only assume that it boiled off (it has a low boiling point) in that first batch, keeping me from killing off my future husband. Gulp.

This is what’s left. If you’ve ever seen a hiking trail after a bear has been through eating chokecherries…well, it looks a lot like this.

So now I don’t use the seeds, and I add a bit of almond extract if I’m looking for an almond flavor. After a bit of experimentation one year with several recipes, here is the one that I consistently use, found on a SureJell website. I like it because it consistently gels, isn’t insanely sweet (some recipes call for twice as much sugar as fruit), and doesn’t call for a lot of water, which just waters down that special chokecherry flavor.

The fruits of all our labors. Jam on right. Syrup (made with a simple ratio of 2:1 pulp to sugar with a bit of lemon juice thrown in and boiled down a bit) on the left.

Note that chokecherries are mostly seed. There is just not a lot of juice/pulp per cherry. But don’t let this intimidate you. They are easy to pick, and with a food mill, you can make fairly quick work of 4 lbs of cooked fruit. Personally, I like the pulp, but it makes for a more opaque jam. If you want a more clear jelly, use a jelly bag, and up the amount of cherries you start with, as your yield will decrease.

New to canning? I’m not going to give a lot of details about how to prepare your jars, secure the lids, and boiling water bath canning in general. But it IS important, and you DO need to know it. Please check out this site before you start.

Chokecherry Jam
Makes 7 (why do they call them half pint) jars – the original recipe calls for 6, but I consistently get 7 cups out of this recipe, and I hate when you have extra jam and no extra jar ready to put it in. If you don’t fill a jar completely, just stash it in the fridge and eat that one first

Simmer cleaned and rinsed chokecherries with water in heavy bottomed saucepan, crushing with a potato masher once mixture comes to a simmer. Simmer 15 minutes. Run through the finest screen on a food mill (and expect a few seeds to escape and ping around the room). You can also strain through several layers of cheese cloth or a jelly bag instead, but your volume of juice will likely be reduced unless you squeeze the bag.

Measure exactly 3 cups juice into a large saucepan and add lemon juice. Taste (just so I can imagine your face).

Mix pectin with 1/4 cup sugar to help prevent clumping.

Stir pectin into juice in saucepan. Add butter if desired. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn’t stop when stirred) on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Stir in the rest of the sugar (4 1/4 cups). Return to a full boil and boil for exactly 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add almond extract if using (I always forget this in my hurry to get stuff into jars).

Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/8 inch headspace. Wipe jar rims and threads and secure lids. Process for 10 minutes (the recipe says 5, but most jelly/jam recipes call for 10 – and it is an old recipe). Remember, 10 minutes is for sea level up to 1,000 feet. Your time may vary, depending on how high in elevation you live.

Enjoy on PB&J, ice cream, pancakes, yogurt, what have you. Also makes great unusual Christmas gifts.

20 comments

I like the food mill. Seems like a huge improvement on the potato masher style I employ. I told Dan last night, after picking 200+ pounds of peaches that I may forego chokecherries this year. He was so sad, I’m reconsidering.

I just finished my second batch of this recipe of chokecherry jelly. It’s been a bumper crop where I live, and I’ve been processing a lot of berries. This jelly is absolutely delicious. The addition of the lemon juice and almond extract offsets the potential bitterness of the berries and brings out the chokecherry flavour. I also made a batch of chokecherry syrup with this recipe, and eliminated the addition of the pectin. Amazing! Thank you for this great recipe.

Hi. When I made my chokecherry juice for jelly this year, I was surprised that it looks “milky” rather than clear. I have never seen this before. The chokecherries were very ripe and they split open in the heat very quickly. Has anyone ever seen this happen? I’m wondering if it is ok to use the juice. Thanks

Hi Pat. Unless the fruit was already split on the plant, I’m sure it was OK. Probably just extra sugars and maybe some natural yeasts on the outside of the fruit. The simmer time plus the sugar should kill anything you don’t want and keep anything new from growing. I’m assuming it tasted alright?

I hadn’t made chokecherry jelly since helping my mom as a little girl over 50 years ago. This year I picked the berries (they were all dark purple, maybe overripe?), washed them, boiled them for 15 minutes, put them through what my mom called a ‘chinaman’ (a conical shape metal sieve with wooden pestle to mash the pulp out) then hung the pulp in a jelly bag. I excitedly cooked the 3 cups juice with 6 cups sugar, (from an old recipe), added the pectin when boiling again, etc. I took one taste of the finished product and spit it out. It was so bitter it was unpalatable! What happened??? Does anyone haver any ideas?

Hi Brenda. Wish I knew. Given the amount of sugar you used, it should have been fine. Overripe berries shouldn’t have made the jelly more bitter, it should have made it less bitter. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

Hello, thanks for writing a colorful article. I liked the bit about the seeds. They are delicious. Roasted and ground into a spice they become a good substitute for the main spice in koulourakia mahlepi. Mahlepi is a Mediterranean spice made from seed of another species of cherry (Prunus mahaleb). I assume it is also poisonous in its raw state. But I don’t know for sure.
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I’ve collected some cherries and am preparing to use them. I usually try to make a compote or preserve and not a jam per se, but I would like the results to set properly. I often have the fruit float up in the jar. The area around the fruit does not set and the area under the fruit does.
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Processing? Is this the recooking-step-for-safety at the end? I usually omit this as all of the fruit I process goes into the fridge. You have “processing” as your last step. After the jars are filled and the lids in place. 10 Minutes of processing. I think this is where I often fail. What is “processing”? Does it make a difference to the setting of the jam?

Hi Chet. Yes, processing is the recooking (here called “water bath” canning) at the end. It shouldn’t affect the finished product (at least in terms of the fruit floating or not) but it does make it shelf stable – so that it doesn’t need to be refrigerated.

Thanks for these great recipes. My mom used to make chokecherry syrup with cloves in it and I never liked it much. The almond is a much better choice.
A few canning tips: Anything with that much sugar does not technically need processing. I usually pour a 1/4 inch of hot paraffin on top then after it hardens, just put on the lid. Or–if your jars & lids are hot and sterilized and your jam is hot, just clean the rims, put on the lids and the jars will seal themselves as they cool. I don’t know what you mean by 1/8 tsp. from the top of the jar. I would suggest leaving 1/2 inch between the jam and the top.

Hi Pam. Thanks for your comments, and for catching that typo. It should read 1/8 INCH head space, not tsp. Doh. Fixed now. While there are some who swear from years of experience that water bath processing is not necessary with high sugar jams, and use the old paraffin technique, its generally frowned upon by the USDA and extension offices to do it this way. Because I make jam and sell it legally in the state of Washington, I try my best to comply with the latest techniques. Paraffin is no longer recommended, and a hot water bath for 10 minutes at sea level IS recommended. I don’t find that it changes the flavor, so I err on the side of better safe than sorry. And they have a point. For all that work, why risk it?

From the USDA National Center for Home Food Preservation site, linked in the original piece:
Even though sugar has a preservative action in jams and jellies, molds can still grow and spoil these products. Mold growth causes product to be lost when it occurs. In addition, some research indicates that mold growth on fruit products may not always be as completely harmless as believed in the past. USDA and the Cooperative Extension are endorsing a boiling water canning process for jams and jellies which will make the potential for mold spoilage as small as possible. The cost of ingredients is high enough to make any preventable loss unacceptable.

Paraffin or wax sealing of jars is no longer considered an equally acceptable choice for any sweet spread, including jellies. Any pinholes, shrinkage or cracks in the wax paraffin allow airborne molds to contaminate and grow on the product. In addition, leaks or holes in the paraffin can allow product to seep out during storage. Once on the surface, this seeping product will provide nutrients for molds to grow on the surface and enter into the jam or jelly in the jar.

Hi,
I put in 2 cups sugar and 1 cup honey in the jam rather than 4 1/4 cups sugar and it is just perfect! Not too sweet and the honey works well with the almond extract, absolutely yummy!
I also sealed the jars in the oven; setting the oven at 350 degrees and placing the jars on a baking sheet with a 1/4 cup water on the sheet. Once in the oven, I turn off the oven and remove the jars when cool. Saves allot of time and every jar sealed. That’s how I seal all my pickles and pasta sauce!
Note: If a jar doesn’t seal ensure the lid and jar are clear of jam or debrie and place single jar(s) in the microwave for 1 minute, make sure the screw top is off, or otherwise sparks will fly! Once you’ve removed the jar from the microwave, place the screw top back on and wait for it to seal on it’s own.

Brenda, oven processing really isn’t recommended by any reliable testing authority, from the USDA to state extension offices. Please don’t risk all of your hard work. Just can it in a water bath canner. It doesn’t take that long. Details here: http://www.healthycanning.com/oven-canning/

“The main problem is that the food inside jars doesn’t get hot enough consistently enough to ensure that proper heat penetration has taken place to ensure the biosafety of the product inside the jars. The dry heat of an oven just can’t achieve the same guaranteed result that the two authorized canning methods can. Dry air is a poor conductor of heat — in fact, air period is a poor conductor of heat (that is why pressure canners are vented first.)”